A war film is not exactly common in Indian cinema, and one that focusses completely on a chapter from a conflict without digressing into romance, dreams and dances needs to be lauded, and Sankalp Reddy’s Telugu work, The Ghazi Attack can engross. What is more, Reddy has managed to get a really impressive star cast of Om Puri, Nasser (though in the minuscule role), Rana Daggubati, Kay Kay Menon and others. Border stops being the benchmark. The Ghazi Attack is now the best Indian war film, ladies and gents. Stripped of all the saturated fats that we associate with Indian war films (courtesy JP Dutta) such as sentimental backstories of soldiers, romantic subplots that only serve to the bore and unrealistic heroism, The Ghazi Attack, helmed by first-time filmmaker Sankalp Reddy, deserves kudos for its smart, smart filmmaking.
Debut director Sankalp Reddy’s film is pitched as India’s first war-at-sea, underwater film. A large part of it unfolds within a submarine. That is its USP and risk. If there isn’t a convincing story to tell within the confines of those compact cabins, it could get boring. The hydraulic set looks authentic and the actors befit their parts. There’s also some good storytelling, even if it follows a somewhat predictable arc. Sankalp gives us a fictional account based on the destruction of Pakistan’s PNS Ghazi by INS Rajput off Vizag coast in 1971 and imagines what it must have taken to bring down a powerful enemy at sea. The casting is spot on and the most interesting character is Kay Kay Menon as Captain Ranvijay Singh. He refers to George S Patton Jr.’s War as I Knew It. He doesn’t want to stay politically correct and die in a war to be decorated with medals thereafter. He isn’t afraid of death, but he’d rather bring the enemy down. At the other end is Arjun Verma (Rana Daggubati), a stickler for rules. Somewhere down the line, the twain must meet. Menon is in top form. He has the air of someone who knows his job.
The Ghazi Attack is based on the mysterious sinking of the behemoth of a submarine called PNS Ghazi, pretty much The Nautilus of the Pakistan Army between 1964 and 1971. According to the Pak army, PNS Ghazi sank due to explosions caused by itself or the landmines it laid in the Bay of Bengal. However, the Indian Navy credits the destroyer INS Rajput for sinking PNS Ghazi. As of today, it is a mystery and was thus, a ripe subject for a filmmaker to base a war film on. More so because 90 per cent of the action occurs within submarines and thus underwater. As such, the setting is new to the Indian audience who have rarely seen the insides of a submarine on the big screen. It’s all very contained. Shot in tight angles. Close-ups of actors. Sweating, bleeding, nervous, agitated and trying to keep calm under pressure in a claustrophobic environment where one wrong move can mean either death or a full-scale war between India and Pakistan.
The action set-ups are brilliant. The unobtrusive background score is a loyal second-in-command. Above all, the Ghazi Attack’s script-structure is beautiful. The first half concentrates on the conflict between a hot-headed, trigger-happy but sincere Captain and a calm and composed ‘Company Man’ Lt Commander who has been specifically ordered to keep the Captain in check. The post-interval part witnesses a change in heart and methodology of the Lt. Commander after a tragedy and now the conflict shifts from personal to physical, from intimate to external, between S-21 and Ghazi itself. As for the performances, The Ghazi Attack belongs entirely to Kay Kay Menon and Atul Kulkarni. Rana Daggubati is an expressionless blank slate and the one thing he does well is to growl with a scowl, which indeed works once his character gets control of the submarine and becomes its de facto Captain. Taapsee Pannu has a screen-time of a little more than five minutes and basically, hangs around, for diversity. Rahul Singh plays Razzak, the villainous Pakistani captain of Ghazi, and he does a cartoon-ish Prakash Raj, sadly. Are Indian audiences not mature enough to comprehend nuance in our villains? Why do they have to be Mojo Jojo, Pakistanis or not?
“The Ghazi Attack” is stylishly shot and employs technology on-screen better than many other Bollywood films, but its story-telling is reminiscent of patriotic films from the 60s and 70s when a “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” slogan and the waving of a Tricolor was enough to evoke rapturous applause from the audience.
